Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Kevin Frankish: Toronto Mike'd #748

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Mike speaks with Kevin Frankish about how he copes with depression and anxiety, the value of listening, his departure from Breakfast Television and his new podcast.

Welcome to episode 748 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Joanne Glutish, a lifetime member of the National Chairman's Club, awarded to the top 1% of agents at Royal LePage Canada. StickerU.com, create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Ridley Funeral Home, this year's holidays and hope.

Candlelight Service of Remembrance is December 2nd at 7pm. And Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is my buddy Kevin Frankish. And also brought to you by Acme Anvils, the number one choice of coyotes. Wile E. Coyote, of course.

Good to see you, man. How are you doing? I am doing well. How are you? Good. What is that song? I know you play it every week. That is an original composition by

local rapper producer Ill Vibe. So shout out to Illy. And it's called Toronto Mic'd City Love in parentheses. But yeah, wait for episode one. Like before I recorded episode one, I had a good chat with Illy and I told him what I wanted. I said I want like a modern version

of like the As It Happens theme. You know that and that's what he came up with and I've been using it ever since. So do you have a theme song? We're going to talk about this later. You have a new podcast coming. Yes I do. It's nothing nearly as good. I hope maybe one day to come up with something

like that. You got to contact Illy. He's the man. I just we're talking about a new podcast and I just bought a song. Okay. Yeah, that works too. Yeah, it is because there's, you know, that works too.

And maybe I could rap a song. I don't think that's a good idea, Kevin. No, you sure? Oh, here's a song actually. I don't know if you can license this, but there's a song I have for you here. Hold on here. So this is Buffalo's Goo Goo Dolls, who came up in the episode recently with Universal Honey,

because Universal Honey opened for Goo Goo Dolls on some tour dates. And this song is called Kevin's Song. Is it? Are you at all familiar with Goo Goo Dolls' Kevin's Song? I'm familiar a bit with the Goo Goo Dolls, but not Kevin song. Yeah, you know your Iris, right? But this is, let's hear if Johnny ever sings it. Lots of room to talk over a Kevin song. That's right.

You've got to hit the post, Mike. I don't even know where the post is. You remember, you remember, let's go back a few years and you'd be going, 1050 chum. Were you a chum bug? Oh, I love chum.

I was more a CFTR person though. 680 CFTR. When, like, was there a moment you switched? Like, were you a chum bug

who then discovered the top 40 of 680 CFTR? I was more, I was, I was 680 first. 680 had a strong signal. I grew up in North Bay.

There might not be words in Kevin's song. Like, this might be instrumental. Regardless, it's called Kevin's Song, and it would be a great theme for your podcast. You know what? I'm going to look at it. Yeah. I will.

Just, yeah, Google doll's Kevin's Song. Sorry, where did you grow up? In North Bay. And so we could get CFTR. CFTR, this is Tower Radio in the morning. But it was still something to listen to other than CFCH

in North Bay. Now, help me out though. Are we talking late 70s? Where are we in this? Yeah, 70s. Okay. Do you remember the personalities, like the talent that you enjoyed listening to? Can you shout them out? Of course, we can go Mike Cooper, of course, right? Because the Cooper, but I mean, he went on to CHFI and isn't that old, that unknown to people.

Well, he had the stupid joke of the day, right? The 510 stupid joke of the day. And he used to, and there was, was it Tom Brady in the morning? No. Tom Rivers. Tom Rivers. Sorry, Tom Brady. Sorry, I'm watching, was it Tom Brady in the morning? No. Tom Rivers. Tom Rivers. Sorry, Tom Brady. Sorry, I'm watching the game yesterday.

Yeah, the Buccaneers. Yeah. And so, yeah, there was Tom Rivers who had the Weather Ferry. And he had, well, I remember Daryl Dahmer. Yeah. Forever has been there. Two of them were there a long time. Daryl Dahmer and there. Forever has been there. Two of them were there a long time. Daryl Dahmer and there's another one.

Russ Holden. Russ Holden. They were there for decades. Yeah. Like since the 70s. And they only recently retired, these guys. And who was the news guy? John Silver?

Yeah, there was a Silver. It was Larry Silver. Larry Silver. Yeah. And Evelyn Macko maybe shows up at some point. It was a 68 second news break. I'm Evelyn Macko. Right.

Yeah. Wacko Macko. Absolutely. No, I love CFTR too. And I used to wake up to Tom Rivers. Was that a shock when you found out they were going all news? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, at that point, though, I had moved on because that was like 93.

And I had discovered this new burgeoning style of music we call grunge. And they were playing that shit out of it on CFNY 102.1. And I stopped listening to Top 40 because I wanted my Nirvana and my Soundgarden and my Alice in Chains. And CFNY was in some plaza in Brampton, wasn't it? Yeah, Strip Mall. Oh, yeah. I have on these guys. First, it was in a little house.

Like if you go way back with like Freddie P goes way back and Mike Stafford and you talk about like Pete and Geetz with, you know, David Marsden as program director. There's a little house. And then at some point they end up in a strip mall in Brampton. Yeah. That's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. So when you're listening to CFTR, is that partly why you decided you wanted to have a career with a microphone in front of your face?

Like, did that at all inspire you? Do you know what? That inspired production in me. That inspired production values. You know, it just, they were so good at not just spinning the platters, right? They had the sound effects and they had the little special

segments and you know and that really do they call that the drake format i guess they could okay i think there's some yeah some drake format where everything is just tightly packed it's everything never a dull moment yeah i mean their policy was the vu meter at 100 all the time right right and they were also slick like it's basically you, I was a big fan of radio at that time. And as I said last week on Pandemic Friday, I love WKRP in Cincinnati. As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Right. Arthur Carlson. And like the reason I didn't pursue anything related to broadcasting is because I didn't sound like those guys. Like I didn't have that voice. So I felt like I was, you can't do this because you don't sound like those guys. And I think it's wonderful now because with all the podcasting and all that, we're now getting many people who may have made the same choice you did because of a voice.

And you realize that it's not as important anymore. Not saying you don't have a great voice. No, but authenticity is the order of the day as opposed to the big, you know, the big, you know, John Derringer or, you know. Do you know what else I'm really enjoying, Mike, too, about broadcasting during the pandemic? And that is we're getting rid of ties. And we are sitting now with short sleeve shirts and without jackets on and maybe not so much makeup and hairspray. Right.

Absolutely. Which is good for everybody. Not that I ever use any of that anyways, but it's more authentic. I mean, yeah. I actually,

I'm glad you're here for other reasons. I do want to talk about your podcast soon, but I wanted to just talk about something like, go ahead. Let me mention,

and I'm sorry, I do take over when I'm here. No, take over. We're outside. Can you believe this? And people are not going to believe we're live

in the middle of November. Honestly, I'm not wearing a jacket. I'm actually hot in my great... You're in a t-shirt. Well, it's not a t-shirt. Short-sleeved shirt. And it's warm, right? Yeah. And I brought my...

Oh, yeah. You're going to measure. So this is... We should be six feet apart at least, right? Right. Okay. All right. So here, grab that. There we go. I brought this. I'll put it beside my mic here. I feel like I'm at a high school dance again at Scholar Hall in North Bay.

You know, the priest and the nuns going, leave room for the Holy Spirit. How far apart are we? Nine feet. Yeah. So that's good. That's good, yeah. All right. Here we go.

Yeah, better safe than sorry. And this is going to be a good week for broadcasting out here. There's a few episodes happening in the backyard, but it all starts with you, Kevin. So a couple of notes. One is that my 18-year-old son, who lives in Waterloo now and attends Laurier, he's here right now.

He's in, I think he's in bed in the basement. It's where his room is. And I will say, like, we spent a lot of time yesterday. He's discovered NFL football football which he you know because it's nothing he's so he's really into it so and i don't normally watch football on a sunday unless it's playoffs or something but he wanted to watch the steelers game and we watched it together and we just talked about his school and like it's the sensation kevin maybe you could relate to this like it was a strange mix of like happiness like to spend time with him because i haven't seen him

well i saw him at thanksgiving briefly but not too much lately i'm used to seeing him a lot and sort of like a sadness that like he's gonna go back there soon like the fact that i feel like i don't have as much time with him as i would like he's growing up and there's a can you talk to this because i felt this sadness and happiness all at once let me tell you you. You know what? He's going to come back. That's the new reality. Do you know that? What did I hear? Some incredible stat.

This is an American one, I think. That about 50% of people, of kids, come back to live at home. Wow. And I'm talking about 20, 30 years old. It's just getting that way. They can't afford a house. You know, and mom and dad would rather them be comfortable

than live in some flea-bitten apartment. Yeah, that's a good point. But, you know, meanwhile, he's going to head back there maybe tomorrow. What's he taking? I was asking him about, meanwhile, he's going to head back there maybe tomorrow. What's he taking? I was asking him about like what's his toughest. Please don't say political science. No, economics and business and economics and accounting and all that kind of stuff.

So I don't know what that all is. I don't want to insult any political science majors out there. But, I mean, what the heck are you going to do with that? Well, I always feel like i'm an english and history major and it's it's not that you do anything and it's more like you learn discipline and how to like how to like do research and convey clearly your thoughts in written form like it sort of teaches you skill sets that you can apply to like just general life right that's that's the way i look at it but uh political science i'm glad you brought it up because uh election you know i don't know if you know this the u.s just had an

election and i was wondering we can speak to this as well uh like sort of over the last four years and still like an unsettling general anxiety over like instability in our world do you know what i'm like like like i guess I'm referring... If you could speak to the fact that I felt, just generally over the last four years, this cloud, and I feel like it's now lifting, but it's not quite lifting yet because we don't know the current president.

We don't know whether he'll leave gracefully or what will happen next. But do you know what I'm referring to? I think that the, the, the anxious, I think times are more anxious now than they had been over the past four years. And I'll tell you why I,

you know, I don't think you're going to find all that many people really, uh, who say that Trump is the, the best president ever. I mean, you're going to get the fanatics. Yes.

What, but, but we know that this guy is an incompetent. We know that he is a failure as a businessman. He's a failure as a president. He is not an empathic human being whatsoever. He doesn't care about anything except himself and money. So I mean, okay, having said that, almost half the American population voted for him. And that is something we need to listen to. We can't just say, oh, you know what, Biden won, and he won by this many million votes. No, we have to pay attention to the fact that that country is divided. And there are two ideologies that are clashing head on here. You know, years ago,

the Americans always prided themselves. President is elected. He's my president, no matter what. That doesn't happen anymore. And it's not going, I don't think it's ever going to happen again. And so you've got this division and it's division that is making its way into Canada. Tell me more, like, because I like to think that we're less partisan here, but maybe I'm... We are less partisan right now. However, the very latest maneuvers by the new Conservative Party, I can't keep up which Conservative Party this is, by the way. Conservative Party of Canada, I think is the Aaron O'Toole there.

And the thing is, they're trying to take a play out of Trump's book. And they're trying to divide. And it may, may not work. But the thing is, I'm already getting that feeling here in Canada from some people. If I say something against Trump, I will get Canadians who will just literally be like maggots with me, you know, the make America great again. So it's coming, sadly. And we have to be on our watch to make sure that we don't allow that to happen here. What do we do, though, with the anxiety part of it? Because I wanted to get into a deeper discussion with you about uh you know coping mechanisms because you have that going on and i referred to like this

unsettling past four years and this right now this kind of you know what will trump do next because there's a president-elect and he's gonna have rallies and rile up his uh faithful devotee devotees that uh you know it was stolen from him and somehow mail-in ballots are not, you know, are fraudulent somehow, even though there's zero evidence of such. Like, there's that going on. Meanwhile, we're in, you know, you just did a measurement to make sure

we're like nine or 10 feet apart here. We're in this global pandemic and our case counts are as high as I've ever seen them. Like, they're as high as ever, basically. Yeah, we had another record set this week in Ontario. But there's so many, I guess, you know, we talk about clinical anxiety and depression, which we'll get into,

but then there's also the environmental. And all this is, I just, I feel like we need to step down and kind of acknowledge that it's okay if you feel anxiety and you don't feel right about everything because there's a lot of weird shit flying around. Let's go back to the 60s. All right. Okay, let's go. Let's go. All the leaves are down.

So I honestly believe that we started to lose faith in our leaders and in the truth in the 60s with John F. Kennedy, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and then the apparent cover-up. I mean, you can say what you want. You can have your own theories. But we honestly, no matter what, we still don't know everything. So you can have all your conspiracy theories.

It was the mob. It was the mob. It was the Russians. It was the Cubans. Yeah, the FBI. So, okay, that's fine. But the one thing we can say with certainty is we don't know 100% exactly what happened, how it happened, when it happened, and who was responsible for it. And with the warrant, the following warrant commission, again, it seemed to be more of a cover-up. So as time went on, we started to get more and more distrust of our government. And it was more pronounced in the States, but here in Canada as well. So we lost faith, we lost trust. Now we're at the point where millions and millions of people believe Alexlex jones before they will believe you

know uh tom brokaw or you know sure uh a legitimate mainstream media news in new york times or whatever we've lost faith who do you believe and that comes from a lack of effective leadership. Think about this. With this pandemic, if the entire world got together, we could kill COVID-19 in 14 days. We could. If we all said these next two weeks, world, we're going to do that. Who's going to do that? Who is going to be the leader that does that? We have now gone how many months?

It's been since March. It's eight months. It's eight months. Eight months here, but I mean worldwide, it's been more than that months? It's been since March. It's eight months. It's eight months. Eight months here, but I mean, worldwide, it's been more than that even. It's been a year. Right. So if we had true leadership,

if we had those leaders of the countries we look to for leadership, such as the U.S. and such as Germany, such as the U.N., if we had true leadership that we could trust, we could kill COVID in two weeks. Two weeks. 14 days.

Right. Right. But in, okay, so maybe outline, is it simply everybody, you shut down everything for 14 days and nobody leaves their home and it's essential? But you have to do more than that. You have to do more than that. You have to do more than that. You can't just shut down. You have to be able to say,

listen, we need the world economy to cooperate. We need to go to all the major corporations and say, you know what, for two weeks, the world stops. That means that people won't have to keep up with their mortgage payments or they won't have to pay any loans and we will do some emergency preparedness

for food and water. So rents freeze for two months, like everything? I would just complete moratorium on anything we pay for for two weeks. Now, yeah, it sounds, wow, is that a wacky idea? Are you kidding? Only because I just got these two little ones back in school and it was quite the relief. What is that, communism?

No, I'm talking about two simple weeks. What's the alternative? The alternative is a dragging on for eight months of people uncertain, scared, anxious, depression rates, and we're going to get into that, skyrocketing, skyrocketing. Right. It's palpable. It's palpable. So is that any more stupid than just shutting the world down and the economy and asking everyone to cooperate? And you know what? If we knew it was just going to be two weeks, I think it would be more bearable. But the messaging that I recall from the get-go was to basically flatten the curve, they said. They said, let's just make sure our hospitals is particularly our intensive care units and our ventilators that we don't strain those systems because we didn't want a scenario

where you're deciding who's going to live and who's going to die like this was the nightmare scenario that we were all trying to avoid and that's what this does right like we you know 1300 new cases a day i can't remember how many hospitalizations and uh but less so and deaths etc uh so is is the goal to get rid of covid or is the goal to just um ensure our hospitals and our our health care system is not overloaded while we wait for uh an eventual vaccine which there was some positive news on that front this morning from pfizer that maybe we're only a few months away from something that seems to be working so cross your fingers on that one. But what's the goal here?

14 days, it's gone because it basically, it dies because it can't spread? It won't be gone, but we can reset. We can go back to the days in which it was just starting to emerge and then do it right from that point. do it right from that point because you know we just watched it spread and and again because we did not have true leadership oh yeah we shut down countries and we you know the the u.s claims that oh we shut down all visits from china that well no after after it was shut down from china 40,000 more people still came into the country right they come in from other places. So it's two weeks. All air traffic grounded. All travel grounded.

But, you know, I talked to you. I mean, literally, I'm about to give you a, like a Palma Pasta lasagna. So I have chats all the time with Anthony at Palma Pasta. That's a family run. It's, you know, it's a combination retail store, hot table, italian authentic food

it's it's all of these great things and delicious quite frankly everybody should go there but like there is it it's uh oakville and mississauga so uh you go to palmapasta.com so yeah there's four locations in total and we actually had a tmlx event in december at palmas kitchen which is the big one and it was it's amazing amazing retail space and uh you know eating place but of course nobody's allowed to eat inside there right now but you know we talk and he's like mike he's like he has so many friends restaurant to like people in the restaurant industry and different venues that are just unable to make it through this and a 14 14-day complete shutdown, I know you're suggesting that everyone gets in and we pause rents,

because the rent is what kills all these places, right? It's rent, and very little has been done to really go after a big business and the landlords and corporations for getting them to cooperate, for getting them to say, you know what? These people are living 14 days without an income. You need to as well.

And yes, there will be some going out of business, but do you know how many people have gone out of business in the last eight months and right now are just hanging on by a thread? Oh, I know. I know. It's devastating. And it's devastating, and it's going to get worse. We haven't seen anything yet. You, and it's going to get worse. We haven't seen anything yet. You know, it's going to get worse. And we're putting, this is silly that we're putting all our hopes into a vaccine.

Yes, that's going to be great. But even so, that vaccine probably won't even be available until the spring. Okay, I'm with you. How can it be, you know, is it going to be distributed? Who's going to get it first? Well, I think that we know, right? There'll be a priority sequence, you know, long-term first, first responders second,

everyone over 65 third, all people immune deficient. But think about this though. What about, you know, it's primarily carried by healthy people. Right. Yes. So, okay, we're going to still vaccinate those most at risk.

Right. Like, I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't know what the right way to do it is or not. But there's going, no matter what we're doing, we do things for the path of least resistance. Why do you think that politicians always promise to spend more money when they want to get elected? They're not going to tell you they need to attack the debt, but that debt is going to kill us one day. No, they want to spend, spend, spend.

So all the politicians want to do is get reelected. And so how can I piss off the fewest people? Well, you know what? You're going to have to piss off some people. When you're a dad, you're a mom, and you make decisions for your kids, you're going to have to piss them off. Oh, sure. You don't want to say, oh, I don't want to.

This is for your own good. Yeah. I don't want Johnny and Julie to be angry at me, so I tell you what. Yeah, have that piece of cake for dinner. Go ahead. I know that's what you want. So, you know what? We're just losing faith, and now people are scared. You need direction. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. And we need someone to follow. We need people to follow. We need honest, trustworthy people with integrity to follow who are doing what's right for us, not for the re-election.

And when you say for us, do you mean Canadians or the world? I mean just people in general. In general. Canadians, the world, you know, it's just. And could you imagine if this was one thing that brought the world together? And it could. Like that would be amazing. But it can't happen and it won't happen.

We're just too far. We're too far gone. So we're dreaming in Technicolor here on a beautiful Monday morning? Yeah, still Monday morning here in November, where it feels like, I don't know, September. That's for sure here. Okay, before I get back to the whole, you know, depression and anxiety that's resulting from this eight months that we were in the midst of.

And again, it feels like there's another eight to go here. Like maybe we're halfway, maybe not. Who the hell knows? But you've been on twice before, Kevin. You've been on, let me check my notes. Episode 221 was your first visit. So I'm just going to read the, if people want to go back and hear your, your, you know, the life,

no, the life of Kevin, like how, how you started. I'm going to read the description and it'll give everybody a clue, but Mike chats with, so at the time you were at breakfast television. So I said,

Mike chats with breakfast television, co-host Kevin Frankish about his years on CKVR and city TV and what it was like working with Ann Romer, Liza Fromer and Dina Pugliese. Pugliese. Pugliese. Pugliese. The G is silent.

That's what I always grew up. There's also a frank discussion about Jennifer Valentine and CP24 Breakfast and the target on his back. It's funny that I wrote that way back then, the target on your back. The target on my back? Yeah, it's in the description. I just copied and pasted it.

How did you see my tattoo? That's a stamp of some sort. And then you came back. So you were let go from Breakfast Television and you came back for episode 492 and Mike chats with Kevin Frank about why he's no longer on Breakfast Television. That was basically where you wanted to

just come clean about everything to your fan base and just tell everybody, you know, you didn't wake up one day and say, you know, you didn't want to be on breakfast television anymore. It wasn't my choice. Right. It wasn't my choice. So we had a frank discussion, no pun intended. However, it was probably the best thing for me. So tell me that.

Tell me why. Because I want to know, like, what's life been like since then? What do you mean by that? Best thing for you. Okay, so things had changed at City TV and at Rogers. We got an executive crew in that were only interested in one thing, and that was balancing the books. And that was it. They, they,

it was my opinion. They, they, they had no, no care for content or for making it any better. Um, one of the executives fancied themselves, uh,

a producer of sorts and they should not have been. So I came to, I came to, you know, head to head speaking truth to power a producer of sorts, and they should not have been. So I came to head-to-head, speaking truth to power a lot of times. And you know what? I would have canned my ass too, if it was me. I was very insubordinate. I was. But I was defending breakfast television.

It's the people show, right? Everything breakfast television became was a direct result of people telling us what they want, what they like, what they didn't like. We didn't have consultants. I was not allowed. Whenever they brought in a consultant for ZDTV, I was not allowed to attend those meetings because I would end up in a fight or an argument with the consultant. You felt ownership of the show because you were there so long? I felt a stewardship of the show because you were there so long? I felt a stewardship

of the show. And so this person came in and they wanted to do things that made no sense, that we knew made no sense. And so I had to defend the show because we had grown it to such a point where it was not only the number one morning show in Southern Ontario, it was the number one morning show in Canada. Sure. And, you know, we were defending that. I was defending that. And I, you know, I had always up until that point with every executive team, and they come in in teams, right? There's no such thing as one person comes in.

You know, when the new president comes in, then they clean house and they bring in their own people. Okay. in. You know, when the new president comes in, then they clean house and they bring in their own people. Up until that point, I had been with SETI TV, CHUM, CKVR, which were all the same thing since 1982. And every single executive team, I had no problem going into their office, sitting down and shooting the shit and exchanging ideas and sometimes arguing about things, but always with respect. Never, there was never a time I felt disrespected ever. You know, I was just, I was an anchor, but I kept going, kept going in and knocking on the doors and they're going, oh my gosh, here's Kevin again. Alright, here you go. And I was fine with that. You know what? I was so, but I was told by this latest executive team, listen, and I,

this is a direct quote. We pay you as an anchor. Do that and go home. Right. You're a hired gun, essentially. And so, that wasn't City, you know City TV. Of course. City TV would be perfect today

if they had kept growing in the direction they were growing in. You know, I have regular conversations with many people who worked at City TV back in the day, and there was something to that, and it's different now. I think that's the way I put it. It's all about money completely. And I'm not, you know what? Yes. No, it's owned by a large cable company and they're a public company and they're, I guess

now suddenly, I don't know what to call them, bean counters. It's kind of disrespectful. But essentially the bottom line is sort of what trumps the content. Well, don't get me wrong. They have to make money or the place won't survive. However, at the same time, City TV was unique and was so well placed for the new digital age.

We were doing a show called City Online years before there was even social media. Years before there was social media. Right. So, yeah, we had our problems. We had our characters. But we had dreamers. You know, you go back to Moses Neimer,

who, you know, say what you want about Moses. People say, oh, man, he's wacky. He's hard to deal with. And, you know, he just doesn't. But you know what? He was a dreamer. And he worked really well. I you know what? He was a dreamer. And he worked really well. I remember him and there was, with the Chum Corporation and him,

would get into head-to-head battles. However, they balanced each other out. He was the dreamer. He didn't care what he spent. They care what they spent, but they let him dream. Right. Now, that moved on and there were other dreamers there as well, and it became your station.

It became your breakfast television. That was your show. Right. Everything on there, again, like I said, we didn't listen to consultants. We did some things that we thought would be good. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn't. And then if they didn't, we just admitted things that we thought would be good. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. And then if they didn't, we just admitted it and moved on. Right. You just didn't

do that anymore. And so anyway, the reason I say that it was the best thing for me, and that was a long way to go, I apologize. No, no. I'm always interested in this stuff. I want to see how the sausage is made. So why is it the best thing that happened to you that you were basically tapped on the shoulders and told your services were no longer required? For the final years there and with that new executive team, I became more and more bitter. I became angry. I became noticeably agitated. My depression worsened. I became noticeably agitated. My depression worsened.

I didn't want to go to work for the first time. It's tough enough to go to work at 2.30 in the morning or get up at 2.30, right? I can't imagine. So basically the one day, and the way they told me was we were at a meeting and this person said, Hey, Kevin, hang around for a bit. We haven't talked for a while.

And so I stayed in this meeting room, this boardroom, and everybody left except this person and in walks HR. And I go, eh. Right. And they have a folder in their hands? Yeah. And so the exact wording was, I hear you're not that happy. And I said, yeah, I'm not very happy.

And I'm going to be, you know, I'm blunt. You know I'm not happy with you. And she says, that's fine. This was your last show today. Just like that. Now, they had to save face, so they had to allow me to come back on air to say goodbye. And I didn't't want you know what and i wasn't about to embarrass the company or the station you're in a tough spot there right

like you're in a no-win situation because you don't you know i mean you want to say goodbye and you i'm sure there's some pride right like you don't at the time you don't want you know you've been there forever you're very good at what you do you have a lot of fans and that's a popular show and you don't want it to be knowing that oh this company decided that they'd be better off without you like that is that's that's not a good feeling like so you probably wanted to save face well i didn't care whether i say face or not you know because i can always say goodbye on social media there's other there's a million other ways to do it. And in the world of broadcasting, it's not that unusual to call an on-air person in and say, that was your last show today. It's very normal not to let them go back on the air.

This is normal. However, when it comes to bigger names who have been there for a long time, things are different. And so I was able to say goodbye. And they, you know, I was able to say goodbye. And they wanted me to script my goodbye, and I refused. They were very worried. I remember the day that I, the last show, I remember. They must have been nervous, because this is live television. What's Kevin going to say?

But I have a question. You were there a long time. I'm sure there was a healthy severance package, or at least a severance package. It was the bare minimum that they could offer that was already in my contract. They did me no favors whatsoever. But were you at all conscious that you didn't want to, even though it was the bare minimum, you didn't want to have to deal with lawyers and stuff

if they didn't like what you said on that last episode? Were you at least aware that they had this money that was owed to you? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, the term determination agreement was there. And I mean, it took care of me okay. And you know, I can't complain because there's a lot of people who don't have, you know, that safety net that I had. So you know what?

I'm very thankful for that. But I was so angry. I was so bitter. And at first I was still angry. You know, I was still like, how dare they let me go? How dare they? You know what they gave me as a gift? Tell me.

On air. Remind me, I should say. So for 27 years at Citi and nine years at CKVR, the same company, they gave me a pair of suspenders. Okay. I'm not talking about the staff. Cute symbolism there. I'm not talking about the staff.

You know, the staff, Those are my family, right? Dina and Frank and all. Are you still tight with these people? Not overly tight, but still talk. But, I mean, for this corporation to just, and don't give me anything at all. Like, honestly, I thought it was kind of like it was almost like a slap, right?

And I don't want to speak ill of of them i really don't and i mean that because they're doing what they they felt they had to do what they were paid to do what they were expected to do it was city tv was Unfortunately, it was my opinion that they were more concerned about only, you know, the financial quarter and nothing beyond that. Right. They did what they had to do. I don't begrudge them. Like I say, I would have done it myself if I had been dealing with a real arrogant loudmouth like me. But now I'm on my own.

Right. And I mean, still to this day, I'm scared about what my future is going to be. I'm still, that nurse is still there. Because you're a young man. I mean, I say that relatively speaking, right? You're not. I'm 56. Yeah, but you're, yeah, I can see it from here. Like, I'm serious. It's right? You're not, you're a health, yeah, but you're, yeah, yeah. I can see it from here. Like, I'm serious.

It's 56, you're in good health. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You have a long, you have a lot of creative years ahead of you. Like, of course. So, yes. So, okay, here we are today. You're independent, if you will, because of what you just explained happened.

You're independent, if you will, because of what you just explained happened. I'm guessing, I don't know, but you've completed your salary continuance? Yeah, I'm done. Yeah, I'm completely... Right. How long has it been now since you were at Breakfast Television? Well, it would have been two years in May. I want to say May. I think May.

Okay. You know, I don't know if you paid attention because if I were to go by a station like Breakfast Television, I think I'd never turn that show on again. Like, that would be my reaction. Like, I'm never watching the show again. I have no reason to watch it. You know, I have not seen it. Okay, I'll tell you one of the main reasons is because I don't get up as early, right?

Right. And so by the time it's off the air at nine o'clock, I'm just, you know, getting on with my day. And I don't need to know about traffic or anything. Ironically, I've since moved to the city. Okay, you know, I've been to your apartment. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

So do you want to, and again, whatever you're comfortable sharing, but we knew you forever as a berry guy, right? Yeah. So now you live in the T-Dot. Yeah. My wife and I split a few years ago and purely amicable. We still talk a lot.

Right. There's no problems there whatsoever. I just wanted something simple. I needed for my own anxiety and depression. I needed something simpler. I needed to not have to shovel a driveway or cut the grass or worry about lawn furniture or leaves. Right.

Um, and so I moved down here, got rid of my vehicle. I ended up having a parking spot and a vehicle that I was not using except maybe once a month. Right. That was silly. So I got rid of that. So you, you TTC'd it here today? Uh, no, actually I took my son's car here today. Oh, okay. was not using except maybe once a month right that was silly so i got rid of that so you ttc'd it here today uh no actually i took my son's car here today oh okay i was gonna ask you uh okay so you're you're in a better place now uh because i want to talk about your uh your your mental health

because you were very open and again i'll use the word frank not just because you're frankish but uh you were very you talked about the panic attacks that you suffered on air. And you have a new podcast coming out, which we're going to dive into here. But how is your mental health the last couple of years now that you're living downtown and you're no longer on City TV? It's better now, much better. It's still touch and go sometimes. I'm not going to lie to you. There are some days that I just break down still. And that is a typical sign. I've been diagnosed with severe depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. And so, I mean, that's one of the symptoms, right? Is that every once in a while, mom is just, it's going to kick you in the balls and it's just going to bring you down.

Help me understand because I'd say I suffer from environmental stressors, like something's going, like I mentioned some things off the top, but it's like I react to those kinds of things in my life, which, but when things are going good and everything's, you know, going fine, nothing. Like I don lucky enough I don't suffer from anything, I would say clinical, any clinical depression. But yeah, go ahead. I think with depression though, one of the telltale signs of depression

is that what you're worrying about is most likely never going to happen. So when you think of stress, that's worrying about something that happened yesterday. When you're thinking about anxiety, that's something you're worried about that's going to happen tomorrow. Okay. And it's like you're afraid of flying. Why?

Why are you afraid of flying? Let's pretend you're afraid of flying. Sure. Why would you be afraid of flying if you got on the plane? What would you think? Well, you probably are afraid the plane will crash. Yes. How often does a plane crash?

Very rare event, especially on this continent. On this continent, you know, extremely rarely. Far more dangerous to drive on the 401. Far more dangerous. Oh, my gosh. It's far more dangerous to walk on a sidewalk. I was going to say, I bike every day, and it's far riskier to do my daily bike ride than it is for me to fly. But you have anxiety over something that most likely won't happen. Right.

And that's a real telltale sign of depression. Like right now, I'm dealing with anxiety of, I don't know if this show is going to work. I don't know if people are going to like it. I don't know if I'm going to get sponsors. I don't know if, you know, because I really want this to work. I really want to do this. I don't know if, you know, because I really want this to work. I really want to do this.

I want to share my journey with people and have them come on their journey with me. There are so many people who need help out there and they need a friend and just need someone to listen to. Oh, no doubt. And again, going back to this whole pandemic anxiety when you mentioned it you know the plane's probably not going to crash but we really don't know much about uh you know how somebody would uh their body would react to having covid19 and we don't really know when this you know hellish landscape when it ends like we don't know where the finish line is or what's next like uh what do you say to somebody who's listening right now and has that general, we're eight months into this and I hate to call it the new normal,

but whatever, whatever we're calling it. And what do you say to somebody out there that has that general anxiety about this? There is actually a term for it now. Psychologists have coined the phrase echo pandemic. So an echo, as you know, is you yell and it comes back to you. So this is what's

happening. The depression and the anxiety that is being felt by this and being created by this is called the echo pandemic. And it is already bad. It's already so severe. It is the worst. This is worse. And I'm going to say this with all honesty and sincerity. It is worse than COVID-19. It is exponentially worse. The number of suicides has skyrocketed. Crisis lines cannot keep up. Depression is riding at an all-time high. and now we're about to go into winter.

I was going to say, this started in March. At least there was spring and summer, and we're out here now. We won't be out here in a month. So what happens in January, after Christmas, and a usual January? Usually you get to the 19th and 20th. I think the 17th, they say, is the bluest day of the year. You get to the end of January because Christmas is over, the snow is in, you know there's still a long winter ahead, it's dark early. The credit card bills are due. The credit card bills are due.

So now, now we're going into a Christmas season. The season itself is one of uncertainty. A lot of people don't have the money, but they're still going to buy, or they're going to try to. There's a lot of businesses that, you know, a lot of businesses make't have the money, but they're still going to buy, or they're going to try to. There's a lot of businesses that, you know,

a lot of businesses make 25% of their profit in the two months leading up to Christmas. You may not be able to get together with family. There won't be a Santa Claus parade. You know, so... You just can't go to your friends and family and give them the big hugs and kisses and have that moment together.

And if you do do you feel guilty so now let's throw a really bad holiday season on top of this blue season that comes at the end of january i'm really concerned i'm really worried about what's going to happen to people in february march and and into the spring Now let's talk then about coping mechanisms. Cause here we got, we just, we just set the table like a doom and gloom and, and, and I'm,

I'm feeling it. You're feeling it. Many people listening are feeling it, but like I personally need, I talked about the bike ride and I also, I'm a broken record here, but that daily bike ride is my medicine. Like it really,

I get out there, you get your, a bit of vitamin D, you feel good because you're exercising and you start to think about things and you start to like, you know. It's really important to me. I feel it when I miss that ride. If I don't do the ride because I'm busy one day or whatever.

So that's kind of a coping mechanism for me. Let me guess. When you're on the bike ride, you probably don't think a lot about COVID. No. No, I don't. You said you think about things. What do you think about? Whatever, like whatever the thing of the day

that's, you know, stressing me out, like something I have to do or something that's irking me or something I got a problem I have to solve. I always joked, I solve, you know, a lot of the world's problems on these bike rides. Like, you know, you just start processing it and thinking about what you can do, what you can control,

and then start to look at the things you can't control. And you talk to yourself about how maybe don't worry about the things you can't control because you can't control them. And that's a vicious cycle when you worry about the things you can't control. So you're on your bike and you've got to control that bike. You've got to be present in the moment. Maybe not always. Some of it's rather

mechanical. Yeah, it depends on where you are, of course. But you've got challenges coming ahead. So you keep getting yanked back into the present and into the moment. So you're not spending as much time. You could be watching a television show and completely miss everything on the TV show because you're worried about something. Of course. And that's happened. Sure, of course. And so you start thinking about COVID and you start thinking about, you know, when's it going

to be over? The most important coping mechanism is to somehow bring yourself into this moment here and now. And breathing is the number one way of doing that. Just breathe, like Eddie Vedder is saying, just breathe. You know, you do something that's called, and you know what? When things get overwhelming, try box breathing. Tell me what that is. Box breathing is breathing in through your nose for a certain amount of time. So let's do it together.

So you're going to do it for five seconds each. You're going to breathe in for five through your nose. You're going to hold it for five, and you're going to breathe out through your mouth and hold it, and then you're going to hold it before you breathe in for five. So here we go. Ready? In through the nose. One, two, three, four, five.

Hold it. One, two, three, four, five. Out through your mouth. Two, three, four, five. Wait. Two, three, four, five. out through your mouth, two, three, four, five, wait, two, three, four, five, in through the nose, two, three, four, five, hold it, two, three, four, five, out through the mouth, two, three, four, five. Now, tell me about that. What did that feel like? And then we only did that for a moment. I mean, I would suggest you do it for a minute or two every day.

No, I totally get what you're saying. I need your voice in my headphones, though. Maybe we have record that and I just play it back. Okay, here's what you do then. You're saying it. So what you need to do is I'm breathing in, I'm breathing in, I'm breathing in, I'm breathing in. I'm holding it, I'm holding it, I'm holding it, I'm holding it. I'm breathing out, I'm breathing out, I'm breathing out, I'm breathing out.

I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. So you're distracting yourself. The reason we breathe, and why when you're taking cognitive behavior therapy or if you're taking meditation, the reason we use a breathe is because it's something that's constant, it's something that's in the present. It is something that you're thinking about. So you're not thinking about tomorrow, you're not thinking about COVID, you're not thinking about tomorrow. You're not thinking about COVID. You're not thinking about anything. Just for that brief moment. The worry is going to come back. I'm sorry. It's going to. But at least for that brief moment, you're saying to your body,

it's okay. And when it comes right down to it, the most important thing you can keep saying to yourself is, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It just is. It's going to be okay. Now, yes, there's going to be horrible things that happen in our lives. There's going to be traumatic events. But you know what?

They're few and far between. It's going to be okay. Do you know what the opposite of depression is? Happiness. You know, interesting enough, depression is not sadness. Depression is, you know, yes, it quite often will manifest itself in sadness. But, you know, depression is that just down, you know, down. So it could be dopamine or it could be serotonin that is down in your body. It could just be a down. Now, yes, sadness is a way it manifests itself. But depression is kind of like this doom, right? Your body is doomed. The opposite of depression, and this is my interpretation,

so this is not an official psychological. You are not a doctor. I am not a doctor, although I did play one as a child. The one thing about depression, the opposite of depression is hope. If you have hope and give yourself something to hope for, give yourself hope, you defeat depression. Depression is the worst when you have no hope, when you think of doom and gloom, and it's all going to be bad. Kevin, this is excellent advice, tips and tricks for coping with depression. But there are some people who suffer from clinical depression who need medicine. What's it called? Pharmaceuticals. Like, how do you know if you actually, you know, because if it's a chemical imbalance,

I'm not sure the breathing mechanism will necessarily work. Oh, no, definitely not. No, no, no, no, no. And you know what? I'm on medication. And a lot necessarily work. Oh no, definitely not. No, no, no, no, no. And you know what? I'm on medication and a lot of people don't want to go on it. I didn't. I pushed against it for a year. Because you're worried about side effects? I'm worried about side effects.

I'm worried about not being able to be in control, you know, anything like that. And taking the edge off your creative fire? So, but you know what happened was I finally did it, and I realized, wow, you know what it did? It just stopped the boat from rocking for me so that I could take control. And I have the best doctor in the world, David Satok. I'm just going to say his name. And he and I worked together to balance the medication so that it didn't have any pronounced side effects. I'm sure there are side effects.

And I worked with my pharmacist. You know, your pharmacist, believe it or not, is better educated than a doctor when it comes to medications. The pharmaceutical, sure. Yeah. So I'm on what I think is a good balance, and it allows me at least, it stops rocking the boat so that I can steer. Gotcha. And there's

different stages of people that I want to try and address with my podcast. So people with... What's the name? You have a name for this podcast? The podcast is called The Happy Molecule. And if somebody like right now wanted to hear it, is it something coming soon or is it real right now?

It's coming as of November 15th. Okay, so we're almost there. That's the same day the new season of The Crown is dropped. I planned it that way. Philip and I are not amused.

Oh, come on. We get Maggie Thatcher in these episodes. How can I get back into that? You know what? The one problem with binge watching is that you can't wait

for the next season. But then you binge watch it so long as you lose interest. I love The Crown. I don't want to watch it again. Anyway, I'm sorry. I guess we're getting sidetracked. Some shows, you're right. If there's too much gap between... Quick tangent. We'll come back. But some shows I find

if there's too long a gap between seasons, I really don't care to do it again. What's the one with the down under? Um, uh, Oh, that one. I did never really care.

I watched it, but I didn't care about it. That's called, uh, Stranger Things. Stranger Things. Loved it. Okay.

Oh, it was incredible. Next season came along. I just, you know, I didn't have the same excitement for it. Right. Yeah.

I hear you. I hear you. I'm, I am interested in the crown, but, uh, new season, uh, just because it know, I didn't have the same excitement for it. Right. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I am interested in The Crown, but new season, just because it's based on real life. And I live, now we're going to be finally, the new season will be stuff I lived through. So far it's been a history lesson, if you will.

But I mean, I lived through Lady Di, and I lived through Margaret Thatcher, and it'll be interesting to see that. Now, I mean, when I watched Game of Thrones, I didn't watch it until the last season. So that was perfect. And what did you think of the last season? Because a lot of diehards are unhappy with the last season of Game of Thrones.

You know, when is the last season of anything you've liked? It happens. When is the last finale, though, that you liked? Is that a real question? I'll tell you. The last finale I truly loved was Six Feet Under. I really liked their finale.

But the thing is, we don't like any finales. Right, it's tough to do that. And a lot of people loved the Breaking Bad series finale. I personally didn't like it because it seemed too convenient for Walter White. That's what a lot of finales are, right? They become too convenient.

Veep, I think, is probably the best finale. I've got to get to that. I've started it, but I've got to get back to it. You know what, folks? It is just so it's more timely now. Well, now we have a woman VP. So it's now we've finally got there. It's a brilliant show.

It's absolutely brilliant. Okay, we're going to dive deep. I want to know about your podcast and stuff. So it's called The Happy Molecule. Yeah, The Happy Molecule. And that refers to dopamine. Dopamine is a hormone. And we've all heard about it.

Because they claim that it gets released. Exercise? Exercise and things like that. People generally will feel better about things? Some, not me. Not me. And no, you can't paint everybody with the same brush. No, but that is what, dopamine is responsible for pleasure.

Right. All right, so dopamine, serotonin. So I chose dopamine. And these are chemicals in your brain, right? It's manufactured by your brain. Now, sometimes your brain doesn't manufacture enough of them that could be one cause of your depression there are a number of causes of depression

some of them are biological some of them are hereditary some of them are environmental and that's why there's not going to be a one size fits all so I'm hoping to reach people who are living with severe depression because they, out of everybody, the one message they need to hear is that there's hope and that it's going to be okay. Because they don't think it's going to be.

I know I've been there. And that's where people start thinking of suicide, right? Because they convince themselves it's not going to get better. And therefore, in some way, in that frame of mind, you convince yourself that the world is better off without me yeah either the world is better off without me or i'm better off without the world right and um you know and and they can't see past that cement wall and and i i interviewed i've i've i have quite a few shows in the can right now. I interviewed one gentleman, Mark Hennick, who today is, he has a mental health, it's a clearinghouse, it's a boutique. You know, he does such great work

and he does a lot of public speaking and especially trying to, you know, with suicide prevention. Well, when he was, you know, younger, he tried to kill himself. And, you know, think about this. The work he does now, I will suggest, has saved hundreds of lives. Okay?

I just, there's no numbers to substantiate that. You can't. But I am going to, an educated guess, he has saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. If he had taken his own life at that point when he thought there was no other alternative and there was nothing else ahead, there's nothing on the other side

of that wall. If he had done that, there would be so many people not here today. Wow. Because of him. Because he, at that point he wasn't, but a stranger came along.

The way he tells me the story, it's very much like it's a wonderful life. And this is a future episode of The Happy Molecule. Okay. And this stranger comes along and saved his life, stopped him from jumping off this bridge. Wow.

And I said, what was it about him that stopped you from jumping off the bridge? And you know what it was? He said he listened. He didn't give him some great profound advice. Right. He just listened. And a lot of times, I don't know if you've ever been to a psychiatrist or a counselor or anything like that, you realize they don't say very much. They do a lot of times, I don't know if you've ever been to a psychiatrist or a counselor or anything like that, you realize they don't say very much.

They do a lot of listening. They do a lot of listening, and they get you to keep talking. Because we have the answers in our head. We do. They just help us unlock it. So I'm not trying to say they don't earn their money by talking, but they are trying to get us to unlock the answers in our head. Wow. And so, you know, I keep thinking about that.

In fact, I'm going to be interviewing someone this afternoon. His name is Kevin Briggs. He was a California highway patrol officer who was responsible for the San Francisco bridge. That was part of his patrol area. And he has witnessed hundreds of attempt suicides. And he said only two while he was there went through with it. And he said that he learned this. And so today, now he has turned it into a business of trying to spread the word about suicide and suicide prevention. And if you want to see his TED Talk,

I've seen it. I just keep watching it over and over. It's Kevin Briggs. And again, he repeats the same message. He asked one guy who came over, he brought back over the railing. He said, what was it that I said to you that changed your mind? And the guy said, nothing. He said, he just listened. Wow. So when somebody finds themselves having these kind of thoughts, like, and I can only imagine at that point, the hope is that somebody talks to somebody, right? And I know that there are hotlines, et cetera. You showed me something earlier, but a 2-1-1 number.

If you dial 2-1-1, it's a services number. It's sort of like Toronto's 3-1-1 number? Yeah, if you dial 2-1-1, it's a services number. It's sort of like Toronto's 3-1-1. Oh, we got 3-1-1. Yeah, we have 3-1-1. But this is a step further. This will connect you to groups and organizations. And you know what? 3-1-1 will help you as well as far as,

I'm not saying don't call 9-1-1 if you're in absolute immediate need of immediate assistance. Of course. But by calling 2-1-1, it's like, listen, I'm really depressed, and I'm afraid I'm going to do something to myself. I need to be connected to a hotline. Now, Kids Help Phone, oh my gosh, best in the biz.

And they have now taken on adults. As a result of COVID, Kids Help Phone has had to take on adults. I'm not surprised. Problems with adults. There's Crisis Services Canada. There are dozens and dozens. there's crisis services canada there are there are dozens and dozens one of the problems is i think we need to come up with a better system of conglomerating all of these services they're all wonderful services right but i think we need like when i'm reaching out for help i don't want to

work at it because when you have depression motivation is but two in one like uh obviously i've never tried this before but if i feel i'm in some sort of mental health crisis and I dial two-on-one. Before that, if you have the time and the druthers, I would suggest you Google someone to help. But I had to, you know, and I do a disclaimer off the top of the show where it's more just a, it's just a advice telling people call two-on-one if you're in crisis. It's just advice. Telling people, call 201 if you're in crisis. Because I can't list all the different things you can call if you're in crisis. Because the podcast will be heard.

Right. You know, I mean, eventually. Around the world. It could be. Sure. Someone in New Zealand is going to be listening to your calming tones. And so, I mean, I don't know if they have 211 there. But I know that in the U.S. and Canada, 211 works. And I think that's news.

I will say, when you showed me that earlier, when you got here, I honestly did US and Canada 211 works. And I think that's news. I will say when you showed me that earlier when you got here I honestly did not know about 211. So these you know what there are so many people out there and a person who thinks about suicide quite

often want someone to tell them why they shouldn't. Like talk me out of this? Either talk me out of this or at least tell me it's not the only option. And when we're left by ourselves, we're not very good at talking to ourselves. And again, we talk about anxiety, being worried about what's going to happen tomorrow. And if you're in a frame of mind, I'm going to admit it, I've thought about it before.

I thought about it. There's different states. What did you do when you caught yourself thinking about ending your life? Like, did you have, like, for example, we talked about all these numbers you can call, et cetera, two on one, et cetera. But I mean, this is where it's really important to have like a friend or family member who's like a confidant that you can just talk to, right? It's not only important that you have a confidant to talk to, it's important that that person realizes the gravity of the situation. If someone is talking about suicide, it's reason for concern,

but it's not, you know, call, get this person committed, put them in handcuffs, whatever. It's reason for concern, and it's reason to keep checking in with this person. That's really important. So if someone is talking about it, even if you think, oh my gosh, there they go, talking about suicide again.

Like being all melodramatic. Yeah. You know what? If they're talking about it, it's reason to be concerned. Take it seriously, right? Take it seriously. You start escalating what happens. You start escalating. So. You start escalating.

So now, not only are they just thinking about it, now if they start thinking of a method, if they start thinking of a time and a place, if they start gathering the devices, that's when it starts escalating and that's when you need to go further. So listening is an important first step. Once it starts escalating and that's when you need to go further. So listening is an important first step. But once it starts escalating, then you yourself have to reach out for advice.

That's another group I hope to reach with my podcast are people who live with people with depression. Because you know what? I know I've had loved ones around me who have tried to understand, tried to put their arm around me. But at that moment, you don't all of a sudden snap out of it. You don't. Right. It takes a while for that to work its way through your body. So it can be so, and I've had them just say, oh, screw it.

Just cheer up. All right? Yeah, like buck up. I'm sick of this. And so I get a lot of people who contact me and they're saying, listen, I just spend all my time in my room now because anytime I start to discuss my depression, my family just tells me to go away.

So I want to, there's going to be some shows for people who, you're not bad, you're not a bad, my loved ones aren't bad people. It's just they don't know they don't know what to do and they think by you know what happens when you're a kid and you scrape your knee well you know what your mother comes and she kisses it better and she puts a band-aid on it she gives you a sucker right and you feel better sure and that's what we want with our loved ones when it comes to the depression but it doesn't work that way you can't just put a band-aid on it kiss it better it's lot of listening. It's listening and it's understanding.

It's like, okay, they're going to go away and they're still going to be depressed, but at least they know someone's here to listen. In 2020, we're speaking in the wonderful year 2020 here. And I keep thinking that these kinds of conversations that you would have with a family member or a friend or someone you trust to be a confidant, it's easier now, I think, than previously, like 20 years ago or 30 years ago, simply because the stigma, I think, and a lot of work done, but, you know, we could talk about Michael Landsberg and others like yourself

who have spoken openly and honestly about everything, so that the stigma has been removed. Like, you know, you'll talk about your family member who's got cancer and we'll all feel sympathy for that disease, that illness. Oh my goodness, dealing with that. But your family member who's suffering from, you know, depression and anxiety should be the same.

Like, it should be the same. Exactly, exactly. And it hasn't been removed. We're slowly breaking it down. We're slowly getting there. We're slowly breaking it down. And I'm sure Mike probably has gotten the same comments I have whenever I reveal that I have depression,

and that is, you're so brave to tell us about it. If I broke my arm. Right. I've been there, buddy, in March. You know, if I broke my arm and I said, oh, I broke my arm. Right. I've been there, buddy, in March. You know, if I broke my arm and I said, oh, I broke my arm or, you know, even if there was no sign of it, you know, if I had a coat on, I said, oh, I broke my arm. No bravery required. Oh, you're so brave to tell me you broke your arm. Right. Our brain, our mental health is not separate from our body. Our mental health is not separate from our body.

Right. Right? It's all part and parcel. So if you have a sniffle or a cold, someone will say, oh, you know, you have a cold. And a lot of times they'll suggest things. They'll say, oh, you know what really works for me? This hot tea that my grandmother used to make. Anything like that.

But when you say, I have depression, you're so brave to tell me about it. Right. Good point. Yeah. But it's still biological. It's still in your body. Illness is illness. Right. You know, it's almost like we've built a wall between our emotions.

Like, if we get a tumor in our brain, oh my gosh, you know, there's all sorts of... Right. There's this tangible tumor and we... And we're going to take care of that. But our neurotransmitters are misfiring. Right. And all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, put that person away. Don't talk to, you know, let...

And I think most of it is, and I want to use the term ignorance, but I don't want to use it in a derogatory way. It's ignorance. We don't know. We don't know how to get in touch with our feelings. I have long been a proponent of something that I have coined the term as me-cess. So you have a recess in school. Sure.

And I think starting at kindergarten, and please don't for a minute think that there's no anxiety with kindergarten kids. I talk to kindergarten teachers. I have one in this family who started kindergarten. And although I feel like she adjusted quickly, I know exactly what you're referring to. It can be tough. I have kindergarten teachers who say that they have never seen students,

so many of their students, with true anxiety. So starting in kindergarten, we need to teach kids how to get in touch with their feelings how to recognize when they have stress and what to do about it right and yes you can start as young as as kindergarten yeah um uh i have one one uh dr maria kush who will uh who's going to be on the show as well and she's a child psychologist and she, one way you can talk to kids about depression is you can't say how you're feeling today, anything like that.

You can't. Kids don't know. They won't describe. I'm okay. I'm sad, whatever. But you say, okay, let's pretend there's weather in your brain, in your head right now. Is it a sunny day like today? Is it stormy? Is it a little cloudy? Is the temperature cold or hot? Like,

what are you doing? So you start then. And five minutes a day with kindergarten kids, five minutes a day. Then by the time you get into grade three and four, you've spent a little bit more time a day. So that by the time they're in grade seven and eight, every single kid in every single school is meditating for 15 minutes a day. And it just becomes normal and natural. And it's just a way I can guarantee you. And if I had a million dollars, I would bet it right now. I can guarantee you that you would see better grades.

You would see less absenteeism. You would completely get rid of bullying and get rid of behavior problems in school. You would cut down on sicknesses and diseases. And we'd have better adjusted adults. And we would then be able to better deal with depression, with the more severe cases. So when you get into the manias and the psychoses and that, you know, that still has to be dealt with a different way. But now at least we don't have the entire population which we have to worry about. We have the fewer people.

Do you meditate daily? I try to. I'm not as, you know what, I'm going to be honest with you, a lot of my podcasts are going to be do as I say, not as I do. But, and then again, you told me I could ask you anything. So have you had any panic attacks since you were at City TV? Like have you had any in the last couple of years? A lot fewer. A lot fewer.

Had one a couple of weeks ago. Okay. A lot fewer. Do you know what triggers it? I guess like when you have a panic attack, are you able to review everything and point to something that triggered it or does it come out of the blue seemingly? It can come out of the blue.

It really can. One way that I have dealt with it is with anybody who has anxiety and panic attacks. I hope this helps. A panic attack has never, ever hurt anyone or killed someone. Okay, it hurts you. It hurts. Psychologically, it hurts, but it's never killed anybody. So you have that going for you. But the problem with a panic attack is quite often you think you're going to die. So let's, let's take, let's remove that from the equation right away. So let's take away a bit of the panic from you. So a little bit of the stuff to be anxious about. Once you have to, our problem is we don't recognize our own stress and our own anxiety. And before we can, a panic attack takes hold.

And once an anxiety attack starts, it has to finish. You can't just shut it off. It has to finish. So the trick, first of all, is being really open to your feelings. And as soon as you start getting the slightest bit anxious, you stop. And you say, what am I anxious about? Oh, yeah, okay, I have that big presentation next week. And I'm working on that hard. Now, what you've done is you've sort of interrupted the flow.

You've labeled it. And hopefully you've dealt with it. Hopefully. Now, if you have not been able to and an anxiety attack starts, I find the most effective thing is to tell someone. And people are always surprised when I say I'm having an anxiety attack.

I could be having one right now and you wouldn't even know. Sometimes I get sweaty and I have a an anxiety attack. I could be having one right now, and you wouldn't even know. Sometimes I get sweaty, and I have a hard time breathing. Most times, no. Most times, it just goes through you. So if it's going to go through you, I make the example of a garden hose.

So it's going to go through. So if that water is going to go through, what happens when you squeeze the hose to the water? It stops going through. It stops, but it's still pushing. And it still wants to go through. And one way or the other, it has to go through. It's not going anywhere else.

Yes, I have all the smart asses out there saying, just take off the unscrewed from the wall. It's still coming out of that area. No, it's that water. Yes, I have all the smart asses out there saying, well, you just take off the unscrewed from the wall, and it comes out the other. It's still coming out that end. All right, no. That water, once that pressure is building up, because you're squeezing so hard. It needs to be released.

It needs to be released. Right. And you can try and let it through a little bit at a time. Right. It's going to hurt. However, if you just say, okay, I'm going to try and turn off the water at the wall, okay, so that's where you're dealing with anxiety in the start of it. I'm going to turn and turn off the water at the wall. So that's where you're dealing with the anxiety in the start of it.

I'm going to turn it off at the wall, but I'm just going to let it go through. And you know what? Once you start doing that, they're not nearly as bad. They're not nearly as bad. Just let it happen. Stand your ground and say, come on. And I guess it's the first one that really throws you for a loop

because you now are able to recognize it and you have your coping mechanisms and you can identify triggers. And I'm sure one of the things I'm guessing is that, you know, go somewhere, like sit down, I guess, like,

cause I don't, I don't, I've never had a panic attack, but you'd probably want to be safe somewhere. You don't, I don't know. Do you faint? I'm so ignorant about the panic attacks,

but could it result in losing consciousness? Like, could you faint? It's unlikely. It's unlikely. Sometimes a pretty severe one, yeah. Because I've had like a low blood pressure moment where I could feel I might be fainting, and my first thought is sit on the ground because I don't want to like hit my head on the way down or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, you can have a sugar high or low or crash, whatever. But with a panic attack, it generally is like you think, the one way people describe it quite often is it feels like a severe heart attack. Right, which is why they think they're going to die, right? Yeah, and that is why when you get rushed into a merge or if an ambulance comes, their immediate thought is with heart. What happens though, and this is interesting. All right, so now you go to the emergency or you go to, you know, a paramedic takes care of you and they've determined it's not a heart attack.

Well, all of a sudden, okay, it's all good. Now, they're going to suggest you, you know, you get some therapy and things like that and off you go. And they release you. You're gone. Sure. Right. Because you don't have a heart attack. Oh, you don't have a heart attack.

Thank goodness. Yeah. But I still felt like I was having one. You still need to, yeah. And that's through no fault of, I don't want to fault hospitals or paramedics or anything because they do an incredible job. It's just that it's still a serious issue. Panic attacks are the number one health issue in the world today. Panic attacks, or sorry, not panic attacks, anxiety and depression. Okay. and depression. Number one health issue in the world. And I'll tell you why. Depression and

anxiety have been proven to lead to heart disease, have been proven to lead to, there are some studies that are linking it with triggering some cancer cells. It leads to alcoholism. It leads to job loss. It leads to, even you can get a cold because your immune because your your your immune system is down you get all sorts of diseases if we we spend more on the flu in this province than we do on on mental health right if we would spend more on mental health we would save trillions in our health care budget because Because I've talked to ER nurses before, and I've said, so what percentage of your intake in a given night is mental health related?

And a lot of them say more than 50%. For something that is really treatable, we're just not treating it right. Wow. Okay. I want to, I want to explore more and talk about the nuts and bolts of the podcasting experience here, but I just want to take a moment to let all the listeners know, we talked a lot about, you know, coping mechanisms there. Well, a lot of people are, you know, feeling the loss of a loved one. You know,

maybe you lost somebody in 2020 and you're still in mourning. That feeling, there's coping mechanisms and I want to just let people know about one. This year's Holidays and Hope Candlelight Service of Remembrance is a live online event. In the time of COVID, this has moved online. You're invited to join the good people at Ridley Funeral Home to receive comforting messages,

enjoy live music, and reflect on your loved one's life and legacy. This is all happening Wednesday, December 2nd at 7 p.m. If you wish to attend. I attended last year. It wasn't online last year. And hopefully next year it's back in person. But just a moment of silence. And it it's just it's it's good for

you if you've lost anybody in the last year so it's a great event rsvp 416-259-3705 you can also write uh ridley funeral home at uh contact us at ridleyfuneralhome.com to register and get the link. If you've got a computer network, or any network issues or questions about your computer network, I highly recommend CDN Technologies. You can outsource your IT department to CDN. Barb Paluskiewicz, great FOTM there. She can be reached at 905-542-9759. You can ask her anything.

Speaking of great FOTMs, I want to welcome Joanne Glutish to the family. I mentioned she's a lifetime member of Royal LePage's Chairman's Club. That's the top 1% of Royal LePage for Canada. And just a short clip. I played the longer clip last week, but just a short clip.

Oh, I've lost my bookmark of where it is. So hopefully it is going to get picked up in the right spot here. But is uh FOTM Sheila talking about uh Joanne Glutish so whether you're looking to buy your first home move up purchase an income property help your parents sell the house they've been in for 40 years or just have your questions answered visit her at joannegludish.com and then give her a call so thank you sheila for that joanne gludish welcome to the family and i gave you uh a sticker there uh it's in front of the beer and beer too okay so you we talked about palma pasta but that beer is yours to take home kevin and that sticker uh the toronto Mike sticker that was made by sticker you.com they're a great

company in Liberty Village and they make fantastic products and if you need stickers decals you know when you you've got the happy molecule you're gonna need stickers you're gonna need all your swag you can easily upload the logo to sticker you.com and you can have it delivered to your new downtown Toronto home there. So thank you, Sticker U. Okay, podcast. I've been podcasting for a while. Oh yeah, you were going to say something? I just wanted to go back to the funeral home. Yeah, of course, really. And this has been as well something that has increased the amount of depression that we are seeing. When you have a funeral, you know, and don't mistake depression with mourning. You know, you need to mourn.

And the reason we have funerals is we bring a community together to let the person know they're not alone, to remember the person's life. And in most cases, you know, we're going to miss them, but we move on. Now, come COVID, for a while, we weren't even allowed to have funerals, period. So now someone is facing a loss. Right.

They can't have anyone with them as a community. They can't properly mourn their loved one. And so that prolongs the depression. So this is something that COVID has done. And, I mean, I salute the people at Ridley, I mean, for doing at least the virtual, you know, I bet you they wish it was all in person too. Of course, yeah.

But to at least do it virtually, and I strongly suggest that if you've lost someone, check it out. It's not going to bring them back. It's not going to take away all your sadness, but it's going to be a start, and it's going to take away all your sadness, but it's going to be a start. And it's going to be, you're also, you know,

one of the most important things you're going to, you're going to learn. You're not alone, that there are other people in the same boat. And that's important. It's really important to know you're not alone. No, great points,

Kevin. Absolutely. Great points. The, the podcast, I want to know what it's like, the nuts and bolts of it. Like, how has the experience been?

So you're a longtime TV star, if I can call you that. And now you're kind of entering my domain here. You're on my turf here. I was here first, but we're all, you know. I thought what you did was easy, but no, it's not. Okay, so tell me, that's what I'm curious about.

So I do produce a lot of podcasts. Just to be clear, I'm not producing your podcast. You're self-production, and I can't wait to hear these episodes. But how has it been? Like, you've got to buy your microphones and your gear and kind of do some trial and error? Luckily, I've had all the gear. I have all the gear right now. Now, it's not specifically suited for podcasting, but I'm able to jury-rig it so that it is.

So, I mean, that has been okay. I mean, I will be upgrading if I want to keep doing this, or if it turns out to be something that is viable. But it's been a learning experience because I'm doing everything on my own, right? I'm researching the guests. I'm booking the guests. I'm working on the logos. I am doing the press releases. No, welcome to my world. I do it all on my own. Yes. And it's very fulfilling though, when you have that product that you're proud of. However, you now do it for other people. Like, you know, Dana Levinson, I was just on her show. She's here tomorrow. Yeah show she's here tomorrow yeah she's here tomorrow and and and so you know you now have taken that to the to the next step and you know you you've made it easy easier for podcasters just to concentrate on podcasting like to work

on the con like you can just focus on the research and the content and right yeah but you're you're doing you're touching all the parts because you're comfortable with that end of things. Well, of course, yeah. But it's interesting. Now, you know, it was tough getting guests at first and now I have too many.

I have way too many ideas and way too many guests. And it's tough. And you're doing it remotely, right? Like these guests are on a phone or something like Zoom or something. Which is nice in one way because I'm now able to bring in people from the US or Europe. Right. Well, that is the silver line, I will say.

So we're in the backyard now where I have basically, it's more enjoyable to me to have you in person here. But when I had a few months, I guess after March 13th, there was a few months where I was on Zoom only. And it gave me an opportunity to reach out to some of those guests that had geographical issues. Like I remember thinking, oh, I can finally get Kish on the show because Kish lives in California.

Or I can finally get Jodi Vance on the program because she lives in Vancouver. Brother Bill, speaking of CFNY, and he lives in White Rock. So you're right. There's, you know, it's pros and cons to this. And if you do want a podcast, I think you've probably learned that you've got to upgrade your internet and pay a lot of money for it if you are going to be using Zoom as that or else you're going to get all sorts of hiccups. I'll wait till you introduce live video streaming and then you'll realize, holy smokes. Yeah. Oh, definitely.

Most definitely. It's a deal breaker. But you, I guess we had a chat before I pressed record and I told you like, I've been kind of at this game since 06 because I was the digital producer for Humble and Fred when they were podcasting in 2006. You're going to be a guest at Humble and Fred. Do you know when that is? Is that this week?

I know you're checking your calendar. I should know because I book this thing. But bottom line is... Thursday, November 12th. So yes, Thursday. Okay, great. You've got to break some eggs to make the omelet. Like there's a lot of what I'm doing,

the things I've touched, I've messed up at some point over the last, like for my show, eight years in. Right. You've got to screw it up. This is my third time here. And honestly, I've noticed an evolution in you. Really? Now we've got my attention, Kevin.

With each time. There's a much. An evolution, not a devolution. But it's the comfort level, right? It is. Well, we have a rapport now. Like that's a big thing. not just with me,

but, but you just watching you with the equipment. It's not as much, you're not as fidgeting as much with the equipment. that's true. You're right. You're right. It's just become second nature.

Right. And, and you've, you've, you've worked everything. You know why? It's confidence that you know what does what. Yeah.

And if something's wrong, you know how to fix it. Cause you know where, what are all the parts are. You're right. But also I will say there's something too, and I've noticed this when I have a have a Kevin Frankish on the first time, let me just use an example.

There is that feeling of like, I don't know this person at all. I'm going to meet him for the first time when he knocks on my door. And there is a healthy anxiety about will we have any chemistry, right? Will there be a rapport? And after the first time, the second time you come over,

it's very different to me the second time. Like it's like now it's like, and I told you this and I meant it. When I looked at my calendar and I saw that Kevin was going to visit this morning for an episode of my backyard, I was filled with warm fuzzies of like to see you because we have such a good rapport and chemistry. And I was really looking forward to it. Like a friend was coming by to have like a deck of beer or something on a beautiful November

day. Holy smokes. Yeah, we can't get over. I mean, this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing. But this is bad, right? Like we're not supposed to have nice November days. Okay, stop it.

Okay. I feel like Dr. Diane Sacks is online too. I want to address that right now. Okay. I'm going to address that right now. My cup is half full. And you're not the only one to stop it. I feel like Dr. Diane Sacks is online too. I want to address that right now. Okay? I'm going to address that right now. My cup is half full. And you're not the only one to say it. Everyone says, oh, I can't believe this.

And we've got the snow coming. You know what, folks? It's beautiful. It's sunny. Sit here and enjoy it. And there's nothing we can do about it. I don't know about you, but the last two days of my vacation, any time I do a vacation to go away somewhere, are horrible.

Because you get that slip in your door at the end of the day before you leave, but, oh, you're leaving tomorrow, and you're packing, and you know that one full day is going to be wasted with travel. Instead of just enjoying, you're there. You've wasted 24, 48 hours because you're worried about what's going to happen after that. And a lot of that is attitude, right? But I mean, you're right.

So I said that because I produce a podcast for Dr. Diane Sachs called Green Economy Heroes. And we've had very, again, I'm going to use that word. I only use it when Franks or Frankishes are over, but very frank discussions about the climate emergency that we're immersed in. So you're absolutely right. I'm going to enjoy this day.

I'm going to find time for a bike ride, get out, get some vitamin D and stuff. But it's just a, you're right. It's a little bit of a negative pessimistic attitude on the whole thing that you're thinking, yeah,

we're, we're fucked. Yeah. Well, our kids are fucked. Put, put climate change into perspective though. Right.

All right. So it's like, why are we so hell bentbent on on protecting the climate and why are we so hell-bent in in trying to fix things that we've broken well because of days when we're out like this and we see how beautiful the world is and we see the gorgeous leaves and we see the blue sky and clean air. You know, that's what we want. So we need to, when we have it, yes,

we need to worry about climate change, but at the same time, we need to enjoy. Well, you and I already got rid of our cars, okay? We need to enjoy the climate now. We need to enjoy it. Right. There's no use, yes, we can get angry at what's going on, but at the same time, we've got to stop and say,

ah, this is what it's all about. Well, I hear what you're saying. What you're saying is we Torontonians can get used to 20-degree November days, because I sure can. It's not unusual. We've had them before. There's definitely climate change that is happening. Right.

And there's too much science to show that it's definitely man is having. Right. And I, and it's, there's too much science to show that, that it's definitely man is having an impact and we, we, we can do something about it. Right. But we can't go our whole lives. Like, what are you supposed to do if, uh,

you know, uh, are you supposed to tell people to stop smiling? No, you're right. You're right. You're, I totally get what you're saying.

This is the, you know, attitude is everything. And that's the same thing with trying to convince yourself of depression, is by saying, yes, there's going to be things to worry about tomorrow. But that's tomorrow, all right? It'll come, and you can worry about it then. Worrying now isn't really going to make much of a difference, is it?

I played the theme song to The Littlest Hobo on Thursday nights. Maybe tomorrow I'll let you settle down. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. But so when you said tomorrow, you know, that's all I think about now is maybe tomorrow. But Kevin, I know we're winding down here. I just want to say that I really enjoy these discussions. And I think the more we talk about this, the better.

And I'm glad that you're starting this podcast to speak because it's not just the person suffering from anxiety and depression, etc. But really it's family members and people who love people who are suffering from... It's family members. It is people who don't have depression. Because I want to make sure you don't get it.

So recognizing some of the signs and the warning signs and recognizing what you can do about that. So yes, this show is for everyone. It's not just about depression. So it's called The Happy Molecule. It starts on the 15th. And I also have a blog.

It is thehappymolecule.blogspot.com. And you can email me at thehappymolecule at gmail.com. And I have a Facebook live show every Sunday night called The Happy Molecule Extra in which we can have a conversation. And I thoroughly enjoy this conversation and this won't be the last. You've been here three times

and then when the spring comes and we can get back on this backyard, I'll see if you'll make the trek over for a fourth visit. Definitely, my friend. Awesome, Kevin. Awesome. And that brings us to the end of our four...

Sorry, I gotta get this number right because it's the 748th show. I think if I do the math, yeah, Dana Levinson will be 749 and that makes Bob McKenzie the big $750. That's a big milestone number there. Wow.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Kevin, are you at Kevin Frankish? At Kevin Frankish. Follow Kevin. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. I'm heading there now. I have a sticker used sticker for Murph,

who's a driver at Great Lakes Beer. I'm going to drop it off there with Troy. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. Joanne Glutish is at J Glutish. And Glutish is G-L-U-D-I-S-H, dish. And Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley F-H.

See you all tomorrow. and Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. See you all tomorrow. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.